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TV Screens Influence the Colour in Your Dreams

by Tanya Thomas on Jul 17 2011 3:25 PM

 TV Screens Influence the Colour in Your Dreams
Have you ever thought why most pensioners have colourless dreams while those under the age of 30 dream in vivid colour? Well, your TV might explain why.
Japanese researchers have suggested that the type of television you watched as a child has a profound effect on the colour of your dreams.

Children brought up with a black-and-white TV are more likely to dream in grey.

According to the survey published by the American Psychological Association, just one in five people in their 60s recalled having bright, vivid dreams.

In contrast, 80 percent of those surveyed under the age of 30 confirmed they had dreams rich in colour, reports the Daily Mail.

More than 1,300 people were interviewed twice over a 16-year period from 1993 to 2009 about the brightness of their dreams.

The amount of colour dreams increased during the stretch only for participants in their 20s, 30s ad 40s but the overall pattern that the over 60s tended to dream in black and white remained the same.

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"When we inquired among college students whether they dreamed in colour, most answered that their dreams were as fully in colour as is waking life," said the study.

"Inquiries among older persons, however, produced the same result as the early research - dreams were predominantly in black and white," it added.

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The researchers explained their findings could be partly linked to younger generations and their experience of watching colour TV since childhood.

"Colour TV may play an important role in that, people in Japan younger than 20 in 1993 and 36 at 2009 have watched colour TV since birth," the study said.

However, it argued the explosion in popularity of colour TVs could not solely explain the phenomenon.

"If the incidence of colour in dreams were affected only by media exposure, it would abruptly, instead of gradually, decrease because the most representative coloured media -colour TV - became prevalent very quickly in Japan," the study said.

Source-ANI


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